Jesus Ayala, Professor of broadcast Journalism & multimedia
Jesús Ayala is a Professor of Broadcast Journalism & Multimedia at California State University, Fullerton and a seasoned award-winning news producer. He teaches courses in both English and Spanish through the university’s Latino Communications Institute and oversees the school’s Spanish-language newscast Al Día. Prior to joining CSUF, Mr. Ayala covered breaking news stories from around the world as a multi-platform Producer for ABC News, where for more than 15 years he excelled as an expert covering Latin America and South America. He has covered the devastating earthquake in Haiti, the Pope’s visits to Cuba, civil disturbances in Venezuela, and the rescue of 33 trapped miners in Chile. Moreover, he has covered all major natural disasters— from earthquakes, wildfires, and floods to tornadoes, tsunamis, and hurricanes, including Hurricane Katrina.
While at ABC, he worked with news icons like Peter Jennings, Ted Koppel, Barbara Walters, and Diane Sawyer, just to name a few. He is also the Executive Producer of End of the Road, a documentary that chronicles the plight of children left behind in Latin America who made the harrowing journey to the United States to be reunited with their parents. He is a graduate of UC Berkeley and USC’s Annenberg School of Journalism, and he obtained his journalism teaching certification from the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism. He is the recipient of four national Emmys and six Edward R. Murrow Awards.
Prof. Ayala can be reached at jeayala@fullerton.edu
GERARDO LOPEZ, Lecturer
J. Gerardo López is a journalist with a solid knowledge of the Latino Community. He has a four-decade-long experience doing journalism in Spanish. For 27 years, he worked for La Opinión, where he led the editorial department for over nine years. Many journalists in his team won international and national awards for La Opinión’s coverage of issues affecting the Latino community. His team also wrote and published many public service supplements that offered information that helped readers to improve their lives. For four years, he worked for Univision-Channel 34. There, he was part of a team that won a Peaboy award in 2005, and was a producer of a series that won an Emmy.
He later worked for MundoFox-Noticias and was a key player in the creation of a national newscast in Spanish. He teaches Spanish 405, an Editorial Convergence course, where students learn how to create multimedia content in Spanish. He also coaches students on their use of Spanish in Al Día newscasts.
